There are currently occasions in which it is desirable to store digital audio data for use within networked computer systems. Digital audio data exists in any one of several standard formats, most often in the Philips Audio CD or Red Book format. The Red Book standard includes 2352 bytes of user data in each CD Audio sector which corresponds to 1/75 second, along with error detection and correction code and control information.
There are other standard CD formats and information about them is widely available. Such a source is "The CD-ROM Handbook" Second Edition, edited by Chris Sherman and published by Intertext Publication McGraw-Hill, Inc.
The current state of the art is that network servers are unable to directly support audio CDs. A frequently used approach to handling this situation is to sample audio Cds and to then store the resulting huge data files on conventional storage media such as CD-ROMs or magnetic direct access storage device (DASD) units. The latter option is sometimes not cost efficient as DASD is far more expensive than equivalent capacity CD-ROM storage.
Today's computer users often want multimedia data for a variety of applications. There are many situations where audio CD data is needed, not only for listening but also for distributing to others on demand usually over a network which includes LAN and internet connected clients. Any system handling large amounts of audio data is better when resource requirements associated with using audio data can be reduced.
It is therefore desirable to improve the cost aspects of using digital audio data within interactive client server networks.